Recently, with an increase in the demand for using Internet, products of various kinds combining a wired and wireless Internet function and a GPS (Global Positioning System) function have been developed and utilized. Additionally, the GPS function is also embedded in mobile telephones. According to the above current, application fields of location information is increasing, and especially, services for providing location information to or through Internet terminals have been increased rapidly.
In general, to provide a location information service through the Internet terminals, a method that searches a specified location by utilizing a conventional identifier capable of representing the location to be searched, such as an address, a trade name, a telephone number, a zip code, or keyword determined uniquely in a server, and indicates the searched result on an electronic map has been used mainly.
However, the conventional method for providing the location information has several problems that it is occasionally impossible to search a desired location at places where there is no identifier, such as mountains, seas, or others, and that it is inconvenient in use because a user must find object with a desired trade name using additional information, such as an address, in the case where there are lots of objects with the same trade name even though it is possible to search. Furthermore, the conventional method for providing location information has another problem that it is difficult to apply single software because the addresses are formed in different way by countries.
Especially, in case of addresses based on parcel or lot numbers, the conventional method for providing location information has a restriction that one point location cannot be indicated by the above address, because the parcel or lot numbers represent not a point location but a field or area location.
Additionally, even in case of a keyword unique in a server, the conventional method for providing location information has a restriction that location information can't be accessed without the additional address information for connecting with a location information server storing the above keyword and its location information since the conventional keyword itself is a text string and does not include any IP address or others necessary for connecting with the location information server.
Moreover, the conventional method for providing the location information has a further problem that it is difficult to share location information databases in the case where service providers provide services through their own software and data format in a state that there is no standardized international format for indicating the same location information or in the case where the trade names stored in the databases by the service providers are different from one another.
Additionally, the conventional method for providing location information has other problems that it is difficult to share location information in the case that the location information is transferred through the Internet terminal in an image type after being copying from a map view screen or in a text type for explaining the location.
Furthermore, the conventional method for an Internet terminal to get location information from the plural location information servers distributed through Internet using a conventional location Identifier itself is not available, since the conventional location identifier such as an address, a trade name, a telephone number, a zip code, or even a keyword determined uniquely in a server itself does not include any IP address or others necessary for connecting with the location information server and, therefore, an Internet terminal does not know which location information server the desired location information corresponding the conventional location identifier registered and stored at and can't connected with it for accessing the desired location information.